ShallowDream

Shallow Dream is a tool to create neat and consistent art from disparate or poor art sources. You give Shallow Dream an Input image (a photo, a painting, a doodle), and as well as "Shard" images. The Shards can be gears, triangles, scales, flowers, or any other sort of small and repeatable image. Shallow Dream will then try to re-create the original Input image using the Shard image(s).

As Shallow Dream runs, the Output image will gradually resolve from coarse grained & abstract to something that closely matches the Input image. Snapshots are saved of the Output image at each step, so that you can choose which image in the progression best matches your art style.

Shallow Dream will also export each individual Shard to a text file, so that you can then use the provided importer to bring the Shards into Unity and add on additional graphic effects.

One of the advantages of this system is that your source art does not need to be consistent in order to produce consistent results. The Shard images will determine the final output style that is produced. At its best, this allows programmers to make crude sketches and drawings, and then automatically translate them into decent looking and consistent game art.

If you have questions or feedback or requests, please feel free to post them as Shallow Dream is still in semi-active development. In particular, if you are a Mac user and have an interest in the program, let me know as I'm still debating whether to go through the effort of porting/testing to Mac. Thanks!